Death Stood Aside
by Aki and Tenshi
Summary: Do not pity the dead, pity the living Dumbledore. The war with Voldemort was over, but that was not the end. A look at various characters lives in the aftermath of the war as they toil with death, life, love, and legacy.
1. Andromeda: Pictures on the Mantel

**Aki-** This story is written with much collaboration with Tenshi. Each chapter will focus on a different character or group of characters.** Also, the chapters can be read in any order! **All canon pairings will be observed.

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**Pictures on the Mantel **

Andromeda was a strong woman. He had done her crying for Ted, months ago, when she had heard news of his death on that underground radio station that Nymphadora listened to and that Remus frequently broadcasted on. She had known almost twenty years ago the risk she took when she had ran off and eloped with Ted, when she became disinherited and lost all protection of her pureblood heritage and last name She was a blood traitor. She had been prepared for her own death because of it, and maybe even Ted's. She mourned, but she moved on.

But she wasn't prepared for this.

"I'm sorry," said the boy sitting across from her. She had only met him once before, but she had known who he was for years: Harry Potter.

She just nodded, not looking at him, fighting the tears in her eyes. Her daughter was never supposed to die before her. She couldn't stand it when her daughter became an Auror, never knowing if she would come back safe at home every night or not. She couldn't stand it when her daughter got so involved in this war. She had hoped after Dora had gotten pregnant and had her baby that maybe…

But she was wrong.

"They died heroes," the boy said in an attempted comforting tone

"I know," she said, glancing up at the boy, voice hoarse. They had both been too courageous for their own good. She was proud of her daughter, and the man her daughter had chosen to marry. She had been wary of him at first, vaguely recalling him from her school days. He had been several years younger than her. She tried not to be prejudice that Remus was a werewolf, like her parents had been prejudiced against Ted for being muggle-born. She had been more worried about the extra danger it would bring to her daughter more than anything else. But in the end, he was a good man.

"Mrs. Tonks…," the boy-who-lived said after leaving her several moments of silence. "I—," he choked off. Andromeda lifted her face, shocked, to see the famous boy himself in anguish. She saw, she understood and for a moment she was glad, she wasn't the only one who missed them.

"Thank you," she whispered just loudly enough for him to hear. "Thank you for telling me. I can tell it is hard for you."

"There's going to be a memorial service next Sunday for all the people who…" e trailed off. She didn't need any clarification, everyone who died in the battle at Hogwarts.

"Alright," she said, just to show that she acknowledged his words. He looked like he wanted to say something more, give some comforting words, but he had none. He left with a 'pop' a moment later.

Andromeda got up from her seat on the couch, feeling numb all over. She didn't know why, but she approached the mantel over the fire place where many mismatched frames held a variety of photographs that all held special importance in her heart.

The picture farthest to the left was one that her late husband never understood that she kept and displayed. It was her, as a young girl, with her two sisters on either side. Narcissa, the youngest, fair and already beautiful with long blond hair that quite contrasted with the other two girls. Bellatrix, the oldest, but not by much, dark-haired with heavy, deep eyes and a distinctive haughty attitude evident on her face despite still being so young. In between was her own young self, almost of no consequence between the immense aura of greatness that came from her surrounding sisters.

The next photograph was taken many years later, It showed her and Ted, surrounded by many old school friends, so many now dead, waving at the camera and laughing, reveling in the summer day in their last year at Hogwarts.

The third framed photograph was the largest and placed directly in the center of the mantel. It was of Ted, now looking significantly older, with the beginnings of a belly showing, sitting next to herself on the same worn couch they had in this very same living room. On her lap was a toddler version of Nymphadora, her hair a vivid shade of blue at the moment.

After a moment of staring, Andromeda tore her eyes from the picture, unable to stand it a moment longer. The next to photographs were fairly recently. One was of Dora proudly graduating from her Auror training. Her hair was purple and shikey, a small, triumphant smirk on her face.

The last picture was the newest, making even the most heartbreaking to look at. It had both her daughter and her new, and already lost, son-in-law, holding their young son between them.

The woman couldn't stand it anymore. She couldn't be brave, couldn't be strong, she couldn't be dignified…

All she could do was cry. Tears ran unabashedly down her face. Sobs escaped her as she collapsed to her knees on the worn hearth rug. She was trembling, shoulders shaking violently, should could hardly breath through her pain. There was no one to hear her cry.

Not a sister who would used to whisper words of comfort in the dark after a nightmare.

Not a husband to hold her, knowing his touch meant more to her than words.

Not a daughter trying to tease and joke her out of her sad reverie.

Her family was _gone._ She was all alone. Disowned, widowed, childless…

She had nothing left. Nothing too live for. It hurt. I hurt so God damn much.

After a tortuously long time, her sobs and tears subsided and she was left breathing heavily, trying, and failing, to regain herself.

Silence. It didn't sound right. Her house was never silent. Not with Ted grumbling about something or the other. Or Dora tripping over something when she came to visit. Or with the new baby wailing.

Andromeda shot up instantly. The baby! She had completely forgotten as she was consumed by her own grief.

She swiftly ran up the stairs, bursting through the door that had become the baby's room. She sighed in relief. He was fine, still asleep despite all the noise she was making, in his crib, his hair an unnatural shade of orange.

She reached down and stroked his cheek lightly with her fingertips. A lump caught in her throat. Tears prickled in her eyes again, but this time not for herself. They were for the baby, the baby who would never know his parents. The baby that gave her a reason to live, to keep going, because he, at least, needed her, not realizing that she too needed him.

This baby who sported both her husband's and son-in-law's names. This baby had the crazy hairstyles of her daughter. This child was a piece of all of them reminding her that they weren't completely gone…

And that she was never alone.


	2. Neville: Not Enough

**Aki- **Okay, here is the next chapter. I don't think it is as good as the first, but i hope you all enjoy it. Thanx to Tenshi who proofed this for me and listened to my ideas for it.

Oh, yeah. you can read these chapters in any order you want. They are in no significant order.

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**Not Enough**

"Brave, like his parents…like his father."

Those were the words Neville always wanted to here from his Gran. More than that, he wanted to _earn _them. Something, his eleven-year old self would have found almost unachievable. Back then, and for many years following (and most definitely before), he had been a clumsy, untalented, forgetful, bullied, almost-squib wizard.

His fifth-year was the first time he ever really felt he was worth something. With joining Dumbledore's Army, he became part of something greater. That same year he fought Death-Easters, faced the woman who was responsible for driving his parents into madness. The reason everyone told him how brave they were, the reason he wanted to be like them in the first place. He made his grandmother proud.

This year had been the same, but more. He found himself leading the rebellion and the reformed Dumbledore's Army against Snape, and the Carrows, and Filch in the absence of Harry, Ron, and Hermione (all of whom he consider more suited for the job than he). Neville had stood up to Voldemort himself; he had killed the Dark Lord's snake, as Harry had asked of him, with the sword…

Neville stared at the sword for a moment. He had set it across the table in the Great Hall where he sat next to his Gran who was bragging about him to the family across from them. It was a beautiful sword, Neville determined as he took time to actually examine it. Silver with giant rubies laid in the hilt. Sleek and sharp blade, the snakes blood still staining it. He narrowed his eyes when he noticed something he hadn't saw before.

He shifted the sword slightly, bringing it into better light. On the eternally shining blade, just below the hilt was engraved a name: Godric Gryffindor. He couldn't quite understand where it came from, how he got it, or how he knew what to do with it. It had all happened so fast…but he knew what this sword was now. It was the one he had seen I Dumbledore's office once. The one that Harry killed the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets with. For some reason he felt a swell of a blissful emotion he wasn't familiar with filling his body. Pride, was it? Contentment? Pure and simple joy for having proof that he did belong in the house of courage?

Or was it relief? Relief that he had true, concrete proof that he belonged in Gryffindor, the house of the brave? He had proof for his Gran. Proof for himself. Proof for everyone…making up for all the years he had been less than worthy. But the feeling quickly subsided. In the end, it didn't matter.

Sure, he stayed and he fought, but that didn't stop that terror that rained down onto the world the last year, or even at Hogwarts. His bravery did not save him from death, only luck did. It could easily have been him in replace of the departed Weasly twin, Professor Lupin, Colin Creevey, one of the hundreds of others, both in this battle and others, that now lay dead at the hands of You-Know-Who and his Death-Eaters. Many more suffering other horrible fates: those left behind, the widows and widowers, the childless, the orphaned, those tortured beyond sanity…

"Neville, where are you going?"

He had stood, unconsciously, which had garnered his grandmother's attention.

"Fresh air," he answered simply, an almost lie, before swiftly exiting the Great Hall. The signs of battle where more prevalent out in the Entrance Hall, where the joy of the Dark Lord's defeat had not reached. Statues lay broken and shattered across the floor. Painting had holes blasted in their canvases from misfires, ripped cloth hung of the corners of rugged stone walls, and blood was smeared on the floor every here and there.

Out here, way from the warmth of the fellowship and victory, it was just another battlefield. Just another sign of a life and death struggle. Will against will. The lucky chances of not being hit from behind as you held off another enemy, that a misaimed curse didn't hurt you, and that one of your own hurt a friend rather than a foe.

How could he celebrate with the others? How could he revel in his Gran's boastings? How could be joyous in his new-found bravery? How could he when their were people still mourning? Families, much like his, torn apart?

You-Know-Who was defeated, but it didn't fix anything. All the dead were still dead. He still hadn't gotten when he wanted.

Feelings miserable, exponentially so compared to the high he was in only moments ago, Neville slumped against the banister of the staircase and slide to a sitting position on the floor. He knew the source of his despair.

It was silly. However, somewhere in his mind, he had unconscious connected the death of Bellatrix Lestrange and the defeat of You-Know-Who with bringing back his parents. They weren't dead, but with the state they were in, it was hard to consider them truly alive.

Because in the end, hearing those encouraging and proud words from his Gran wasn't enough. Having used Godric's Gryffindor sword meant barely nothing. Have his own belief in himself was very little.

He used to think those would be enough. They should have been, but now, when he had them in his grasp, he knows that's not what he wanted all along.

He wanted his parents, the famed and brave and honorable Aurors, Franks and Alice Longbottom, to be proud of him.

But despite all that he had had done, he still wouldn't know if they ever were.

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Next chapter is Dennis Creevey... 


	3. Dennis: Imitation

Aki- Okay, a fast update here. Let's just sayI was inspired. Ilike this one, I hope you do too. Again, thanks to Tenshi for helping me devlop this and for proofreading.

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**Imitation**

Dennis Creevey missed his older brother. A day hadn't gone by since word of his death came that he hadn't.

Perhaps that was why he found himself always standing in the open doorway to his brother's bedroom, unsure if he should enter or not. Was it really so long ago that he would come running here, the room across the hall from his, to be comforted during a thunderstorm even though his brother was barely a year older than him and probably just as scared? Was it so long ago that he was running excitedly into this room to show Colin his letter from Hogwarts, beaming in pride that he was a wizard too?

He wondered what had happened to those days.

He took a tentative step over the threshold. And then another, and another. And soon he found himself in the center of the small room. Colin's room had the feeling of being both cluttered and clean at the same time. His usual mess had been scooped into his school trunk way back at the end of August of the last year. Everything else had been left behind, tucked away in an organization that only Colin ever seemed to understand.

The most expediential of Colin's confusingly filed possessions were his photographs. The ones Dennis saw even now, corners poking out of the drawers of Colin's writing desk. Dennis pulled out the chair and sat down.

Colin always liked capturing life in the form of photographs. Forever memorializing moments on a piece of paper. A 2-D version of life. A wonderful way to bring back memories, but, in the end, merely a cheap imitation.

Dennis pulled out the top drawer and stared down at its contents, smiling faces waving up at him. Colin's enthusiasm for the camera doubled when he learned he could make them move with magic.

Dennis picked up a blurry moving photo that had been taken years before. He could tell its age because in the summer after Colin's first year at Hogwarts he had tried to teach Dennis how to develop photos in the potion that made them move. Dennis had ruined more than a handful. He never quit got the hang of it. Here was one that he had messed up, in fact, several others lay in this drawer, too. He gave up once he had been accepted to Hogwarts as well, figuring that there would be something else magical that he was good at.

Dennis rifled through the lopsided piles of pictures. In the back corner of the drawer he came across a stack of unmoving Muggle photographs, all of which had been taken by Colin. Some were out of focus, some lopsided, had a finger over the lens obscuring the picture, or peoples' heads were cut off. Colin's first camera? Piecing together what he could from the few unobscured images, he decided that they were from a combined birthday party they had had one summer. Colin had been turning seven and he was turning six.

Memories flooded back to him from that day. Ones he didn't even know he had. Memories of Colin, too much of a caring and nice older brother to keep his coveted new gift to himself. No, he had tried to teach Dennis how to use a camera, too; not that Colin was any good himself at the time. The last picture, he assumed, had been taken by their mother. His first clue was that it was in focus, the next was that it was of Colin and himself, both looking happy in the midst of their own party, each holding a slice of vanilla-frosted birthday cake.

An indescribable sadness suddenly filled Dennis. His gut twisted uneasily. He quickly shoved the pictures back into their corner, trying to forget, yet desperately wanting to remember.

He searched the shallow drawer some more, vaguely wondering why he had kept his attention solely on this smallest drawer, when there were four larger ones to explore as well.

There was something, something that drew him to keep looking here, where he had already found so many memories…he needed to keep looking…needed to understand…something…something that he didn't quite know but was on the edge of his consciousness…

Slightly surprised, Dennis pulled out of the drawer something that didn't seem to belong. It was a badge from the Triwizard Tournament, flashing unenthusiastically between "Support Cedric Diggory: The Real Hogwarts Champion" and "Potter Really Stinks."

He and Colin had spent the whole night trying to change the badge to read "Support Harry Potter" but only end up making it worse. A piece of Dennis's own abysmal charm work. Thinking back on it now, Dennis decided that they should have tried transfiguring it. Both of them were better at transfiguration anyway.

Why had Colin kept all of these things? Most, if not all, could have been disposed of a long time ago.

Setting it aside, Dennis resumed his search once again but found nothing else of real consequence. Some pictures of a Quidditch game, the first he had ever seen with his brother, he believed. Others of Dennis' sorting (Strange- he didn't recall Colin having his camera at the time). Even a few old letters sent between them during their year when Colin was away at Hogwarts without him…

Filled with anguish, regret, and inexpressble sadness, Dennis slowly and careful replaced all the items in the drawer, putting them back more neatly than the way he had found them. He felt anguished that his brother was gone, fighting in a battle he was told to leave.

He regretted that he, Dennis, hadn't stayed with him, and fought by his side.

And there was the sadness that all he was left with were photographs that told so many stories, yet only hazy, half-forgotten versions.

Like a pain reliever that only dulled the hurt for a short time, and all the while you knew it was only a superficial relief, photographs were only vague impressions of life. They might content you for a short time with a spark of a memory, but they failed to match the pleasure of the actual experience that was held in its image.

Slamming the drawer shut with sudden ferocity, Dennis stood violently from the chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor.

Photographs were worse than just imitations. They were imposters.

They could never, _ever_ bring his older brother back to life.

They couldn't ever bring back those happy, innocent times.

Colin was a fool to think believe that his pictures would be worth _anything_.

…

Feelings immensely guilty for thinking badly of his brother, Dennis sank onto the still made bed, hiding his face in his hands. A tear ran from his eyes, down his nose and fell silently into his lap.

He peered through his fingers at the desk across from him. He wanted to keep searching, to find something to hold onto. Some imitation that would make feel it was okay, make him know that his brother wasn't gone, even if it was a lie… But he couldn't search anymore, because he knew everything else he would have found would have been worthless. Every one of his memories shared with his brother was in that topmost, center, smallest drawer.

With a gasp Dennis realized that he had just figured out a piece of Colin's crazed organization system. It was something that showed a bit of his brother's kind heart. Something that was enough for Dennis to know his brother loved him even after death…even if it was only an imitation.

He had just stumbled upon the 'Dennis drawer.'

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Aki again- I hope you got that. Next chapter I believe will be Harry and Ginny (I'm going by all canon ships in this story), but don't hold me to that. feedback is love 


	4. Ginny & Harry: Nearly There

**Nearly There**

Ginny knew she should be inside with her family. They had just gotten back from the big memorial service at Hogwarts to remember everyone who had d--

She found it funny that she couldn't even finish the word in her head.

Mum was crying again. Dad had already given up trying to comfort her. In fact, Ginny thought she saw some tears in his eyes too. It was scary. She couldn't remember seeing her father cry before.

George had run upstairs the moment they had gotten home with a haunted expression on his face. Percy and Charlie were sighting silently in the corner, guilt written on both of their faces. She vaguely wondered what they felt guilty for. Percy had been there when Fred was killed, maybe he thought he could have saved him or maybe he felt so horrible about disinheriting the family those few years ago. And Charlie, well, Ginny could only assume that Charlie felt guilt for being away in Romania for so long. For staying where it was safer during the war, and for not being there to see Fred and George grow up…

Bill had been in the sitting room, being comforted by Fleur. Ron had been there to with Hermione and Harry. The tension, the silence broken by occasion sobs…she couldn't take it. She was willing to face death eaters, but that…no, she couldn't do that. Silence was too unnatural in their usually bustling home. So she had slipped out and no one had seemed to notice.

"Hey," said a voice from behind her.

She whipped around so fast the ends of her hair hit her in the face. Apparently someone had noticed her leave...Harry.

"Hey," she whispered back.

Harry took a few steps across the garden closer to her. "You okay?" he asked.

She shrugged and didn't look him in the eye.

"You don't have to talk about it. I won't say that. After Sirius died and everyone wanted to talk about it, but I didn't and…" He trailed off in his ramblings.

She just nodded and stared at the sky, unable to look at him. She sniffed.

"Are you sure you are okay?" he asked again, taking another step closer to her.

She didn't answer, didn't look at him, but another sniffle told him she was close to tears, if not already crying.

"I— I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is for you to lose a brother…" He couldn't, he had never lost someone who had been with him since birth, someone in of all of one's earliest memories, someone who was truly a piece of his family like Fred had been to Ginny.

"It's not just that."

This caught Harry off guard.

"It isn't?" he asked.

Ginny shook her head. "It's everything. It's not— not how I imagined it. You-Know-Who is gone, but…it's supposed to be happy, but we're all still sad. And I keep thinking that maybe, with everything so different now, it could never go back to the way it was…before."

Harry reached out skimmed the side of Ginny's arm with his fingertips. A comforting gesture. She continued.

"I know it's stupid but I always thought we'd all be okay. It just doesn't seem like a victory this way."

"I know what you mean," said Harry quietly, watching Ginny apprehensively.

"So it's not just Fred, it's Moody, and Tonks, and Lupin…and you."

"Me?" asked Harry, shocked and slightly curious. "Ginny, I'm fine."

"But don't realize, for a while there, we thought you were dead," explained Ginny in a rough whisper, tears stinging her eyes. "We had already lost all them. We couldn't stand to lose you too…"

Guilt was written on his features. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I made you feel that way—"

"You don't get it," interrupted Ginny, "You really don't. You're part of our family too."

Harry was stunned silent. He couldn't quite explain why that statement had hit him so hard at the moment, even more than when Mrs. Weasly said she was as good as his mother. Maybe it was the fact that all the extensions of his original parents were gone. No more Sirius, no more Lupin, no more Dumbledore. But the way the red-headed girl said it to him now…with no expectations, no hidden meaning, as if it were just a fact. A fact he was beginning to like.

By the time his attention was drawn back to the girl across from him large tears were rolling down her cheeks and she shoulders were shaking with barely suppressed sobs. Harry immediately wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. She buried her head on his shoulder and cried without a word, but without restraint.

He tried to remember her last saw the relatively tough girl sobbing. She had cried at Dumbledore's funeral, but those had been silent tears, a composed sadness, not like this. It must have been his second year after he rescued her from the chamber of secrets and she was terrified…

"It's okay," he repeated again and again in her ear even though he knew it was a lie.

After several long minutes she gained control of herself mostly. She pulled back from him slightly to be able to look him in the eye, though his arms were still around her and hers around him.

"I missed you," she told him.

He nodded slightly. He realized it was the first time they had had a real talk since he had left the Weasly's all those months ago.

She rested her head on his shoulder again and closed her eyes as if she had fallen asleep. Harry shivered as he felt her breath on his neck. He kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms around her middle, pulling her closer to him.

For how long they stood in the middle of the garden, embracing each other, neither knew, in fact, neither cared. All that mattered at the moment was that they were together again. It wasn't much. In fact, it was nothing at all compared to the turmoil they had just been through, that they still had to go through, against a world which had nearly collapsed beneath their feet.

It would be a long time before it felt like a victory, but as they stood there, together, they both felt that they were nearly there.

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Aki- Sorry for any mistakes. I hoped you enjoyed this. I am going away for vacation for a week so I don't know the next time I will update is. I won't have a computer. Anyway, til then, God Bless. 


	5. Snape: Flashes

**Aki-** I'm Back! And here is a chapter about Snape, who deserves a moment before his death chapter because he is cool like that. It is drabble style, but different from the earlier drabble style ones. It's a bit shorter than the others too.

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Flashes**

It has been often said that before you died your life flashes before your eyes.

Of course, Severus Snape never believed in such rubbish.

He didn't know how true it was until it was too late.

If he had known perhaps would have tried to live a life he wouldn't cringe to see when it was played back to him.

…

The piercing in his neck from the snake's fangs burned and bled profusely. He uselessly grasped his neck, trying to staunch the bleeding. The venom burned through his veins like fire, but at the same time he lost all other feeling. Only the pain and nothing else. He collapsed to the ground underneath him.

…

He never truly expected when he did see flashes that they would be in reverse.

…

A horrid replay of his death played before his eyes in almost slow motion, his groggy thoughts coming up with ways he could have escaped, although most were impractical. This was followed by the gut-wrenching realization that he had failed. He had failed to give the Potter boy the secret that had been entrusted to him by Dumbledore to give…

His memory flew back across the last horrible year. No one knowing he was still for good. Watching countless people die and be tortured as he tried to keep his cover. The world falling to shambles around him…

Dumbledore dieing at his hand…The look of hate on Potter's face…calling him a coward…

Everyday, living with the guilt of her death…being reminded of the elder Potter through his son… The look of distaste, hate, fear on all the students faces…

Her dieing…he couldn't stop it, it hurt like hell…

Being told by Dumbledore that he disgusted him…Pleading with the Dark Lord for her life…failing to save it…

Her rejecting him…telling him that she hated the person he turned into…saying they couldn't be friends anymore…

She was his only friend. His first and only love even though she never had the chance to know it…

A million of Lily memories flashed bitter-sweetly before him. He saw and knew very detail, soaked up every emotion, recalled the melodious tone of her voice, the slight slant of her humored smile, the unique shade of red her hair was when it caught the evening light, the ever slightly ironic scent of flowers that always followed her, her rich, good hearted laughter, the scornful words that came from her in anger, the soft ones that came in apologies. He knew them, saw them, heard them, smelt them, felt them all, even if only in a few milliseconds of time passed in the real world…

…

"Take it…Take it," he repeated weakly, hoping the boy would understand and hoping that _he _had forgotten anything importanthe needed to tell the boy…

The memories rushed out of him, from ears (everything he heard about her greatness), his mouth (All the words he wished he could have said), his eyes (like tears of remorse).

The boy looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment, shock (two things not unfamiliar) and pity, which was something he had never seen before on either Potter's faces. Regarding Snape anyway.

But he had seen it on her face.

…

At this moment Harry Potter looked less like James and more like Lily than any other time Snape had seen the boy.

It was a tortuous reminder that she had chosen that jerk over him.

It was also a gift that she had been there all along, even if he hadn't been able to realize her…

…

Another memory blessed him:

The best moment of his life when he met a girl. A girl who accepted him despite how poor and strange he was. A girl who showed that everything his mother ever said about 'mudbloods' was wrong. A girl how taught him how to love, no matter how cliché it sounded. A girl he lost. A girl he would never truly lose. A girl with fiery red hair. A girl with emerald eyes he hoped to see once more.

…

"Look at me," he croaked, using the last of his strength to grab the boys robes and force him to meet his eye. "Look at me," he repeated to emphasize his point.

And the boy looked straight at him in the eye. It wasn't in hate or defiance or in some disastrous occlumency lesson. It was here and real.

He was no longer James Potter's son. Snape did not see the unruly raven hair, the classic Potter face, or the round glasses. He was no longer the boy-who-loved. Snape no longer saw the scar.

All he saw was the boy's eyes. This was Lily Evan' son. Those were Lily's eyes.

…

He knew that a person like him was never going to get a happily ever after, but this was the next best thing, he imagined. He didn't fail Dumbledore, he gave the boy the message…the plan…

And he got to died looking into the eyes of the one Lily Evans.


	6. Peter Pettrigrew: Silver Betrayal

**Sorry this took so long to get up and that it is very short. But I haven't forgotten this fic!**

**Aki- **To be honest I was a little disappointed as to how Wormtail died. I wanted him to do something brave to redeem himself, but I guess the more Snape's job in the end. Also, this chapter has Biblical allusions to the story of Judas Iscariot. I'll explain at the end of chapter for those you who don't know it.

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**Silver Betrayal**

Despite what some people may believe, there is no glory in being a traitor.

He knows it. It has haunted him day and night.

There is no glory or honor or victory.

Nobody trusts a traitor. He already lied. He already turned on his best friends. What's to say he wouldn't do it again, against these people he had no loyalty too except out of fear.

He wasn't talented. He wasn't brave. He wasn't smart. They didn't need him. All his use had been used up long ago.

Did you think it was easy, betraying your best friends? Do you think that after you do that you sleep well at night?

The answers 'no' if you couldn't guess.

If he had known back then…well, he'd like to think that he'd do things differently, but he'd probably be the same coward as before if he was honest with himself.

Peter didn't like being honest with himself.

Honesty was one of Peter's least favorite things in the world. The truth of what he had done still haunted him. He didn't want to dwell on those thoughts. He didn't want to know that Lily and James were dead because of him. He didn't want to think that Sirius was dead too and Remus hated him and Harry…well, he could only fathom as to how much the boy despised him. Harry still saved his life though.

And all those honest thoughts made him feel sick to the stomach. Guilt, shame, horror. He knew every time he looked at his new silver hand, traitors never win. No, they are down in by their on tricks, they taste their own medicine, they destroy themselves, they can't beat the regret.

A silver hand, like thirty silver talents. The price of human life. Trading your friend to satisfy your own greed, trading your soul to protect yourself.

It seems like a good idea at the time…

…But it is never worth it.

No, it drives you to the edge of sanity.

It took away your will to live.

Every memory becomes a nightmare.

Every second, excruciating torture.

…

Silver, the reward of betrayal, but what is the cost? What will you pay for it in the end? Your own life, because one way or the other, you brought it on yourself.

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Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus' twelve apostles, but he betrayed Jesus to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver. Afterwards, Judas felt so bad about it he killed himself. 


	7. Ron & Hermione: Nice

**Aki- **So, I was trying to write a Ron and Hermione chapter and this is what came out. I didn't plan this one, I just started writing and...well. I think Hermione is a bit out of character, but I guess you are going to have to live with that. Anyway, hope you enjoy and please review.

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**Nice**

It had been a full month since Lord Voldemort's defeat.

A million things had changed, but so many hadn't.

Hermione, as well as Harry, was staying with the Weaslys as neither of them had anywhere else to go. And no where else they wanted to go.

Her and Ron had talked about their kiss a total of zero times.

It hadn't bothered her at first. Between the grieving and the celebrations, the rebuilding of the wizarding world as the last of Voldemort's supporters were either caught or fled, there hadn't been much time to _think_ about the kiss, much less talk about it. But after a while…

It was just annoying.

Especially when they tended to get stuck alone together after Harry and Ginny had sneaked off to do…_stuff._

This time they were in Ron's room, albeit sitting silently at the opposite ends. Hermione was attempting to read, _attempting._ However, her eyes kept wondering up past the pages of her book to watch Ron staring absently at the bright orange ceiling as he picked at a loose thread on his shirt and Pig flew around tittering, trying to get someone's attention.

Hermione knew what she felt about Ron, but he hadn't betrayed what he felt about her. A part of her dreaded that when he had kissed her back that night it had just been in the heat of the moment. That maybe he didn't care…

She couldn't take it anymore.

She snapped her book closed so hard, Ron looked up at her, slightly startled.

"Well?" she said fiercely.

"Well, what?" he asked confusedly. At another time Hermione might have felt pity on the boy who looked so small and bewildered under her wrath, but a month of pent up emotions was too long for her to care.

She placed her book on the chair behind her and crossed the room in three determined striders. When she reached Ron's bedside, where he was now sitting, she took his head in her hands and kissed him on the lips.

She pulled back a few moments later, placed her hands on her hips, her face now flushed red from anger and embarrassment, looked down at him and said, "_Well?"_

"That was…nice…" said Ron, misty-eyed. However, Hermione did not take it as a star-struck and had the distinct impression he was teasing her.

"Uhgg, Ronald Weasly, you are so difficult!" she said, preparing to storm out the bedroom door, but before she could take a single step in the other direction a firm, but gentle hand took hold of her forearm and prevented her from moving.

"Hermione," said a gentle voice from behind her as he dropped his hand from her arm. She turned around to face him, having to crane her neck to look him in the face as he was so tall and so close to her.

"It really was nice…"

A new blush tinged her cheeks, this time from being both flattered and flustered.

"And the other one," Ron continued, referring to the first kiss they had shared over a month ago, "Was nice too."

"…Oh…," was all Hermione could manage to say.

"I never told you before because I wasn't sure that—'

Hermione's heart fell. Here it came. He hadn't been sure if he actually liked her.

"— that you really liked me."

…huh?

"…huh?"

"But now I know. I didn't want to bring it up before because, I guess I figured you would because you are responsible and stuff…" Ron trailed off.

"Ron," she said, still arching her neck to look up at the red-headed boy. "I _really_ like you."

The boy smiled. "I like you too, Hermione."

"Good," replied Hermione.

Awkwardness and silence filled the room, but neither moved from where the stood a few inches apart. Neither broke eye contact.

All of the sudden Hermione burst out laughing.

Ron looked befuddled. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Hermione said through her chuckles, trying to regain her composure, "It's just that we were both so scared that we didn't like each other that we convinced ourselves that the other didn't like us…"

"You're not making any sense," said Ron with a grin.

Hermione shrugged. "I guess not," she whispered in reply.

Silence fell between them again, although this time not nearly as tense. It was a comforting silence even.

Slowly, as if afraid that she would pull away if he moved to fast, Ron slinked an arm around her waist, ending with his hand resting in the center of her back. As she didn't pull away he followed with his other arm and pulled her half a step closer to him before lowering his head and resting his forehead against hers.

They were barely touching along their torsos. Only the barest brushing of their outer most clothes, but it was enough to send an unfamiliar electricity through their bodies. Their breath intermingled in the air.

"Hmm…," said Hermione after a silent moment, "This is nice."


	8. Fleur: A Cure in the House

**Aki-** Sorry for the very, very long delay for this chapter, but I was fianlly inspired and this is what you get.

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**A Cure in the House**

Bill and Fleur have diner with the family at the Burrow every Sunday night. It was the worst part of Fleur's week. Not because the house was run-down, or she didn't like the food, or she hated the company. No, none of those things bothered her, despite what some of her more critical relatives may believe. She couldn't blame them; she freely admits she was rather pompous in her more youthful years.

There was a time she enjoyed the Weasly family dinners, as hectic, crazy, and loud they could get. They weren't loud anymore. Not boisterous. Not happy. She no longer laughed until her face hurt.

Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione, the no-longer kids, the ones that seemed able to recuperate from the recent tragedies first sat at the end of the table, holding their own whispered conversations. From the looks on their faces, they weren't always about happy things. Percy, a brother who she had only recently met phrased everything he spoke in extreme politeness, afraid to offend when he was only now fixing the whole between him and his family. Arthur, Charlie (when he was in the country), and Bill often spoke of how work was going, a safe topic. Mrs. Weasly, Fleur's mother-in-law, only dealt with what people were eating, usually severing an extra helping or two onto her various children's plates with even their request. George was always unusually silent.

She felt like an invader, her and her French accent among the not as cheery as they should be Weasly's.

It seemed to go on like that for an eternity, each week a little more relaxed, but barely so. And always filled with guilt as if unsure that they should be moving on so fast. It was torture. To joke, to laugh, to smile, to gossip, they all seemed inappropriate things for her to do. She usually remained silent on diner days unless directly spoken to. No one questioned the change, thinking that her loss of characteristic assertiveness was due to her coping with the end of the war.

Bill was the only one who noticed, but never spoke anything about it, and for that Fleur was thankful. She was sure she would have broken done in tears if she had to explain the anguish she was going through.

She did, that one day, about five and a half months after the defeat of You-Know-Who.

"I'm home…," Bill dropped the scrolls from work onto the floor when he caught sight of his rather tough wife in sobs. He ran to where she sat on the living room couch and kneeled down next to her. "What's wrong?"

She hiccupped as she tried and failed to control her over follow of emotions. "No-hic-thin'."

"People don't just burst into tears for nothing," Bill retorted, concerned.

"No, no,-hic- it iz a good thin'-hic," she tried to reassure him.

"What is it?" questioned Bill, not entirely convinced.

Fleur looked up into her husband's worry-filled face and was soothed. Taking a deep breath to try and calm her hitching breathing. She gave him a small smile, tearstains making her pale cheeks glistening in the lantern light that lit their cottage.

"Bill, I'm going to 'ave a baby."

Bill was silent a moment. He glanced from her face to her stomach and back to her face as through looking for some sort of comprehension.

"You're—," he stuttered after a moment, utterly surprised, "You're pregnant?"

Fleur nodded.

Bill face split into such a genuine and happy grin that it was almost like he had no scars marring his visage after all. A moment later Fleur was surrounded by Bill's strong arms as he held her in his warm embrace.

"My god, this is…amazing," he whispered into her ear. Fleur laughed in pure elation, she couldn't help it. The red-haired man kissed her on her temple, but otherwise refused to release her from his loving hold. Fleur didn't mind.

The next Sunday night dinner was particularly quiet. It may have been from the approaching six month anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and all the whispers of memories it brought with it.

Bill cleared his throat. "Mum?" he spoke. Everyone's attention turned to him.

"Yes, dear?" replied Molly, her back still to him where she was stirring soup on the stove.

"Um, there is something I want to ask you…" Bill and Fleur intertwined their fingers underneath the table.

"What is it?" she said, still distracted.

"I was wondering," continued Bill, Fleur had to bit her lip to keep herself from smiling, "What you thought about being a grandmother?"

"A what, dear?" she asked blankly, not having processed what her son had said. In fact, the whole family seemed a little slow on the get up. Finally realization dawned on Ginny, who whispered something behind her hand to Hermione, who nodded in agreement as if she had known all along. Ron and Harry stared on in confusion.

"A grandmother…"

The word seemed to reach Molly this time. She turned swiftly around. "A grandmother?" She said looking back and forth from Fleur's and Bill's faces as if trying to detect a lie. The rest of the family had caught on at this point. "But that means…?"

Bill nodded. Fleur burst. "We're 'aving a baby."

Cheers filled the room. Molly ran around the table before the others could even move from their chairs and was hugging both Bill and his wife at the same time. That was until she broke into tears about how her baby has all grown up and was going to have his own baby. Ginny and Hermione were fawning over Fleur and were already pounding her with name suggestions. Arthur and Percy congratulated Bill in an adult way, but George, having regained a little of his old self, thumped Bill soundly on the back and told him, "Good job," with a slightly suggestive expression on his face.

Alive. It was the only word that Fleur could find to explain the Burrow at the moment. As much as she loved the attention she was given for being pregnant, all the more was she pleased of how…loud…the Burrow had gotten. Something it hadn't been in a very long time. The illness that had long been eating away at the hearts of the Weasly family had finally been cured.

Fleur placed her hands over her stomach even though it would be weeks until she started to show. This child had saved them by reminding everyone even in the midst of all this death, there could still be life. A renewal, a healing, a redemption. A cure in the house.


	9. George: Lost and Found

**Aki-** I've been thinking about this one forever and I finally got the courage and the inspiration to write it. Hope you like.

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**Lost and Found**

The store was a wreck. They had to abandon it and revert to a mail-order business when the war got so bad. After a while that stopped completely. Selling pranks seemed of little consequence after Voldemort had taken over.

George righted a chair that had been lying on its side for so long that dust congregated on it. Thankfully they had prepared ahead and moved their stock back into the burrow way before the store had been attacked. Fred thought it was a cowardly action, but Mum insisted and…

...Fred…

George was sure that every single member of his large family had times when they paused in the memory of the departed young Weasley as they found something or did something that reminded them of the elder twin. Something that made them freeze for a moment as their heart was weighed down in grief. He was sure the all loved Fred and missed him as much as he did. He was sure their pain was just as real. The only difference was he felt that pain _every moment_ of every day since his brother's death because everything he saw, everything he did, reminded George of his late brother. How could it not as when they where both living they had been so inseparable and similar in demeanor and personality that most failed to be able to distinguish between the two.

"It must have been a hell of a store." George didn't need to turn around to recognize Percy's voice, although he was clueless as to why Percy of all people was here.

"It was. It was…our dream." George almost flinched at words. He had become so used to using plural pronouns…he had yet to break the habit.

Percy took a few steps to stand next to his younger brother.

"You should have seen it before," said George, "…I'm sure the flat upstairs is as big of a mess as this. This place was ransacked after You-Know-Who took over…" He trailed off. It was sad that he hadn't spoken this in-depth to someone in months….

"So…are you going to reopen it?"

That was the question that had bothered so fully as 'to be or not to be.' Should he give up on his and Fred's dream, or try and continue his life as if Fred wasn't gone. Neither seemed liked the right way to go.

"Look, George, this has been hard on all of us, but I can't imagine what it's like to lose a twin…"

That's it, that is what everyone was thinking. Poor George who lost his twin. Yes, Fred was the closest person to him in the world, and yes, it was ever so difficult to adjust to not having a carbon copy of you other than in a mirror, or the fact that no one longer finished your sentences, and the knowledge that years worth of matching sweaters with 'F's and 'G's woven in no longer had use. Gred and Forge, Fred and George, seen as one unbreakable unit…that was until, they broke.

"…I'm not saying you have to move on, but I am saying you can't give up…"

Why not? How was he supposed to live without his other half? George couldn't explain why he felt so blindsided by Fred's death when he knew the risk that had laid on his entire family's head since the return of You-Know-Who. Friends could die, parents could die, younger siblings could die, and older brothers could die. Twins were an all or nothing deal. Kill them both or let them live. George was okay with dieing, he just wasn't counting on being alone. The line between twin and older brother never seemed so thin.

"…I know I haven't been the best older brother…"

Older brother. That's what Fred was; he was George's older brother. No one but George had known Fred's leadership role in there relationship. He was louder, more outgoing, more clever, and maybe a bit more devious. Fred was reckless, George brought the little bit of sense into their schemes. Fred spoke for him, made him laugh harder, believe more, reach farther…it was all a little crazy.

Fred protected him. From what? Midnight childhood monsters, in their youth. A boring, run-of-the-mill life, perhaps. Even more, Fred protector George from his own insecurities, but making up for them in his own rambunctious fashion…

"If you are going to open the shop again, I can help…"

"What?" snapped George out of his reverie, "Perce, have you even been in a joke shop before now?"

"Umm…no. But that's not the point."

"You can't run a joke shop if you don't have a sense of humor."

"I have a sense of humor!" Percy cried indignantly.

George gave him a pointed look.

"Albeit, it's not a very good one," the older of the two Weasley's added. "But seriously, what are you going to do?"

The question that had been tormenting George brought him back into his depression Percy's profound statement had broken him out of temporarily.

"I—I don't know. I don't know," said George in realization to himself. "I always used to know what I was doing to do. If I didn't, then Fred knew. We were always pranking, or inventing, or tormenting Ron, or practicing Quidditch or avoiding homework at all costs…but…now…"

"You're lost," finished Percy for him.

"Wha?" George looked at Percy, shocked.

"I know what it's like to be lost. You keep blindly going forward entirely unaware that it is best to turn around and find your way back home."

George looked at Percy strangely, as though unable to accept it was truly him.

"I know I lack a grasp on all things funny," said Percy, making George smirk slightly, "But I do know business and administration. If you were to reopen the shop, I could help you there."

"Why are you doing this?" George questioned, refusing to yet answer Percy's constant inquiry about the store.

"Because I'm not keen on working at the Ministry again. Been there, done that, and not very well."

"And what's the real reason?"

Percy sighed. "That is the real reason. One of them. The truth is, I'm…I'm frightened by being consumed, again, by my own ambitions. I don't want to lose my family to that again.

"And you're helping me because….?"

Percy shrugged one shoulder. "Because you're my little brother and I've forgotten that for far too long."

George turned his attention to far wall rather than look at his elder brother. He took a few steps toward the counter which had previously held the cash register and absentmindedly wiped the dusty edge with his finger.

Percy stared at his back with nervous anticipation.

"Well, we're going have to set you up an office."

"What?" said Percy in surprise, having fully expected George to turn down his offer.

George turned to face him, leaning against the counter. "Well, Fred and I always took care of business on our coffee table. You seem like the type that needs a big leather swivel chair."

"The sounds about right."

"But you realize that your list of duties includes testing the prototypes."

"Why can't you—?"

"You don't want to damage the brains of the operation," said George, reveling in the fact that for once he was the "brains" of something more than the ever-perfect Percy.

"Hey— You can't—Why are you smiling like that?!" sputtered Percy.

"No reason."

George may have lost an irreplaceable older brother, but might have just found one as well.

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Aki- Hope you enjoyed. Did anyone catch the Hamlet allusion. Yeah, I thought the Percy thing (with him helping in the store) was original, but then I found it in another story and was like, oh, guess it's not. (But I didn't copy from anyone, I had the idea for this chapter before i even wrote the first chapter). 


	10. Teddy: No Normal Kid

**Aki- **Hey, finally, another chapter. This one is way longer then the others, but I really like it. It's for Teddy Lupin. I really love him. Who else does loves Teddy?**

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**No Normal Kid**

Teddy wasn't a normal kid, even by Hogwarts standards. Wearing your hair a bright shade of turquoise often got you more attention than other kids. It didn't help that his godfather was _the_ Harry Potter. It got him barraged with curious admirers when he started his schooling at Hogwarts. He basked in the glory of the individual attention he wasn't familiar with from being an unofficially adopted member of the large Weasley clan.

However, it got annoying after about one week, when he realized that everyone was less interested in him and more in his godfather. He couldn't blame them, Harry Potter was much more interesting than him a turquoise haired, slightly shy, orphaned, seemingly untalented freak like him. He didn't mind being a freak; he wore the self-label like a badge of pride.

Although Teddy discovered, much to his surprise, he really liked school (but not to a nerd level), and he loved to watch Quidditch games, really enjoyed the house rivalry, the dorms were awesome, independence was great, and he had earned an reputation as a great prank master (he made up that term himself) because he believed it was his civic duty to live up to both his father's and godfather's name, resulting in week extra's worth of detention that would cry over into the next school year (Gran was horrified; Harry tried not to look proud)…anyway, he discovered at his welcome home party at the end of his first school year that he loved his family and the time that he spent with them a million times more than he did the friends he made and his time at Hogwarts. The realization came with the bittersweet pang that of the entirety of his extended family he was referring to, only one was blood related.

…

Teddy wasn't a normal kid, even if he didn't realize it all the time. I mean, he never used to consider being an orphan abnormal. He had his whole life to get used to it. One time, when he was 12, Victiore asked him what it felt like, not to have parents. He didn't have an answer. He never 'felt' anything different. Sure he was sad at times about it, but his life was fundamentally the same. He had a million people who loved him and cared for him: Gran, Harry, Ginny, Victoire…the list could go on and on. But the more he thought about it the more he realized that something…someones…was missing.

He was hardly the only Hogwarts student who had a parent or relative listed on the memorial that stood in the entrance hall for the people who died at the Battle of Hogwarts. Most people pointed out the engraved names of a late relative with mild interest, receiving glory for their family's bravery. Teddy _never_ pointed out his parent's names, although he had been asked about them once or twice. He was hardly the only student with a relative's name on the memorial statue, but he was the only one with _both_ of his parents on that statue.

…

Teddy wasn't a normal kid and he didn't really care anymore. No normal kid would be spending the Saturday of the Quidditch championship game on a beautiful spring day inside the castle. Especially if it was the last game of your seventh year. No, the castle was quite quiet, abandoned even. Perfect prank set up time, he had learned from previous experience (Hogsmeade trips were good too), but he wasn't in the mood.

In fact, he was in a downright horrible mood. Some of his friends might have called it early NEWT's stress and he let them believe the false assumption. He didn't want to talk about it. All his friends _had_ their parents. So maybe that's why he found himself all alone in the Entrance Hall during the Quidditch championship, tracing his parents' engraved names almost absently with his forefinger.

Teddy was six years old when Harry explained to him that his father was a werewolf, although he didn't understand the implications of that until years later when in his first year that jerk Andrew McLorren broadcasted quite proudly to the entire student body about Teddy's father's secret and got everyone to avoid him for weeks. Ever since then Teddy has stayed up all night on nights of the full moon, staring out the window or laying on the roof of his house. He could never quite get over how something so beautiful and magnificent as the sight of the full moon could bring something so horrible. He also thought he owed it to his father, maybe just to know the weariness of the day after if not the pain of the transformation. Because blood was blood and, no matter what, he was proud of where he came from.

Teddy had been able to change his appearance at will for as long as he could remember. He had complete control of it by age nine and a half. It was then he liked to experiment greatly with his appearance. Pig-like noses, bright orange eyes, height a few impressive inches taller than his peers, pointed-elf ears, hair of various shades and styles…the novelty wore off after a while, although he was always willing to oblige for the amusement of his classmates. Most of the time he kept his eyes their natural shade of honey-brown, like his father's. But he always kept his hair a ridiculous shade, usually turquoise (although he admits experimenting with pink to discover what allured his mother to it so much). It was a tribute to her; he thinks she'd appreciate it.

…

Teddy wasn't a normal kid, but he didn't mind most of the time. He didn't mind not being normal because his hair alternated between shades of turquoise, pink, or black. He didn't mind not being normal because he was unnaturally good at pulling pranks. He didn't mind not being normal because he was deep and reflective at times. He didn't mind not being normal even because his godfather was Harry Potter. He didn't care about those things. In fact, he enjoyed them.

But he did mind not being normal when it came to his parents…

"Teddy!"

He turned around on spot to see a laughing and loudly talking crowd filing in the front doors. The game must be over. Victoire, blonde hair floating behind her, ran up to him.

"You weren't at the game. You alright?" she asked, head cocked to the side in concern.

"I'm…," he glanced behind him at the memorial, "Fine."

She wasn't convinced. "You miss them," she stated sadly.

Teddy nodded.

"Maybe you can talk to Uncle Harry—"

"I've talked to him. And to Gran. And to everyone who's known them. A million times…it's just not the same." He looked at the floor.

He felt Victoire move up closer to him, her hand brushing against him in invitation. He took her hand in his own, thankful for the small comfort.

"Teddy, you know I'm always here."

"I know," he said, meeting her blue eyes with his brown ones. _'And I wish that was all I needed,' _he added mentally. "It's just…"

"Yes?" Victoire gently prodded.

"Sometimes I wonder…I wish they were here…"

"They died heroes—"

"I don't care!" he said, anger boiling out of him, directed more at the unfairness than at Victoire. "But they're not here! If they really loved me they would be here to see me graduate or praise me for good grades or scold me for all the detentions I've got. They would be here to assure me about the future and giving me a talk on how to treat my girlfriends right. If they really loved me they wouldn't have gone, they would lived, they would have stayed and Gran and Harry wouldn't have had to raise me because my parents would have been there…" Angry and embarrassed tears filled Teddy's eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He had never spoken those words despite the long years they had been in his head.

Tightening her grip, Victoire silently lead the unresisting Teddy away from the crowd into the privacy of an abandoned and rarely trod corridor.

"Teddy," she said, demanding eye contact. She gently swiped a long strand of his hair, which had unknowingly turned to a dull shade of brown, off his forehead. "They loved you. They had to."

"But how do you know?" Teddy demanded weakly.

"Everyone says—"

"So what? How can I believe anything when they are not here to prove it?"

"Because they died for you! Like Uncle Harry's parents did for him," she argued.

"That's different. Voldemort brought the fight to them. My parents went to the fight."

"Because they had to!"

"No, they didn't!"

Victoire took an exhausted sigh. "Look," she said, calming herself, "Remember in your third year when McLorren was taunting that real little, shy kid,…um…Kevin Richards?"

"Yeah?" said Teddy uneasily, not sure in what the direction this was heading.

"Then you hexed McLorren for it and got a week's worth of detentions and lost twenty-five house points for it?"

"Vividly." It was those points that lost their house the cup that year.

"Then why did you do it?"

"What?" asked Teddy, confused.

"Why did you defend the kid? You knew you would get caught and get in trouble. Why did you do it?"

"Because it was the right thing to do…I couldn't just stand around and do nothing."

"There," said Victoire, proving her point with triumph. "Your parents died doing something that was the right thing to do. They couldn't let injustice reign. It wasn't right."

"Fine," said Teddy with a small, forced grin, "I get it."

"Good, now I think it's almost time for diner. Would you escort me?" she said with a teasing smile.

"Anything for you, milady," Teddy replied with a small chuckle.

Once her attention was averted from him at the noise Great Hall, where everyone was talking about the Quidditch game, Teddy allowed himself to sulk again. He knew his parents had loved him. Deep down, he knew it. He could tell from their smiles in the photographs and the anecdotes of their friends he had collected over the years, but that didn't ease the doubt that filled him from within. Their something that couldn't replace witnessing it for yourself, living it, like everyone else seemed to take for granted.

Although he appreciated the concern and effort, knowing it was coming from the heart, but Victoire's confidences did little to ease his worry and heartache. He let her think that she did, because he didn't want to worry her with his problems. She cared too much about him to let him be distraught by himself.

He remembered his fifteenth birthday and how Harry had told him that his parents, Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, had died to make the world a better place for him. They were heroes, but for all it was worth, he sometimes wished they were cowards. Part of him thought that he could have faced the world at its worst, full of prejudice, Dark Lords, fear, and war, and could have dealt with it all if he just had his parents with him. Because growing up with this normal, happy world without them seemed near impossible.


	11. Dean Thomas: Blood

**Aki- **I have been rereading _Deathly Hallows_ (just finished last night), that's why I have been inpsired of late. This chapter is shorter then the last one. It focuses on Dean Thomas. I talk about Dean's family, all of it is imspired from canaon and what JKR has told us about his past, but I make some of my own stuff up. **

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**Blood**

Dean Thomas found himself feeling like an excruciating outsider to the wizarding war. Maybe he felt as outside as any other muggleborn who was hiding in fight for their life. But it was even more different for him; he didn't know if he was muggleborn or not. His father had disappeared when he was a young kid, so long ago that Dean couldn't even remember him. After he got his acceptance letter to Hogwarts, Mum suggested that maybe his father had been a wizard, although he never told her so. It made sense when Dean went to school and learned that his father disappeared right during the war with You-Know-Who, the first one that is.

In his wildest daydreams he used to think about discovering the truth about his father. That maybe he had left to protect them, to fight Death Eaters, but death never allowed him to return home. Maybe Dean would find his father's name in some great history text or genealogy, showing Dean as heir to some great wizarding legacy. Then Dean awoke to reality and he was a normal, everyday wizard, who was unnaturally good at art, but not much else except supporting West Ham football. Then maybe his father was just a wizard too cowardly to wait out the war with his muggle family. Maybe his father wasn't a wizard at all, just someone who hadn't loved him or his mum enough to stick around.

Most of the time he didn't let the mystery of his father burden him with deep, troubling thoughts. He had a family. Sure his dad wasn't actually his dad and his sisters where only half his, but what did it really matter in the end if they shared blood or not. Perhaps it was that mentality that made him feel so apart from every other single magical being involved in this messed up war. Everyone else had a side, mostly. Sure, he knew that You-Know-Who was wrong, and he knew he'd fight against him if he ever got the chance, but…he didn't really understand what the fight was all about. He knew what racism, and prejudice, and social class differences were all about. They didn't just exist in the wizarding world, that's for sure, but he never fought about blood before. It was of no consequence to him, it wasn't even in the picture. Blood didn't make family. "It's not the genes you shared, but the jeans you shared," his mum's corny saying went. In the end it meant that blood didn't make a family a family, but the little things you shared, from worn out, hand-me-down blue jeans to love, at least, that's how it went for his family.

Family was so much more than just blood.

Family was his step-dad buying him tickets for them to go to a football game together (the perfect birthday present, even though Dean didn't ask for them).

Family was reading bed-time stories to his baby sister.

Family was helping his mom cook diner over summer break because he could only imagine how hard it was when she was a single mother taking care of him and she had earned a break.

Family was an Irish best friend who, as his father was a muggle, tried extra hard to understand where Dean was coming from.

Family was "Gryffindor Rocks" posters that they all rallied behind for the big Quidditch match (even though he still thought football was better).

Family was a rag-tag groups of mudbloods and goblins on run from the law, helping each other survive, even thought they didn't have to.

Family was Ron's older brother and his French wife who kept him safe at their cottage when they very well had no responsibility to.

Family was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl who never gave up hope and made him believe that this war might actually be possible to win.

Family was going home to his mum, dad, and three little sisters afterwards. A giant group hug, a long bath, whispered tales over cups of hot chocolate, sleeping in his own bed, and waking up in a place where he knew where he was loved.

He didn't really get why the others set so much store on whose blood was or wasn't pure. He didn't understand why there were distinctions at all. But he was forced to. He had to run and hide, because he _was_ smart enough to not register as a muggleborn. The fact was there was a difference and there was a war over it and he was going to be a part of it whether he liked it or not.

Part of him felt that maybe, if his real father had stuck around or if Dean himself had search harder, he could have proved he wasn't muggleborn and went to school. He felt guilty for thinking that way, trying to push the misery onto other muggleborns, but not himself. But on the cold nights, when he had to sleep on the hard ground, and his stomach ached from hunger, and every whistle in the wind and rustle of leaves could have been an approaching enemy who wouldn't hesitate to kill him because of his 'dirty blood', he was didn't have time to feel guilty. Because blood _did_ matter in this world, it struck him even more after Mr. Tonks and Dirkwell and the goblin had been captured (and now were dead, he had learned). He would never, ever let blood matter to him, just because this world said it did. No, he knew the truth. He had known it for so long.

Blood didn't matter. Not at all. Never. Because his family wasn't about blood. His family was his mum and step dad and three half sisters. His family was his best friend who was the brother he never had. His family was the school mates he spent six year of his life with. His family was slightly "loony" girl he had a crush on because you can't go through horrible things together without forming some sort of bound. His family was Bill and Fleur Weasley, who he still corresponded with, because saying thanks only once for harboring him during a war was never enough.

Family had _nothing_ to do with blood.


	12. Snapshots

**Aki- **Okay, this chapter is a bunch of mini-fics that are not long enough to be there own chapters but covered some themes, ideas, and characters I wanted to cover. Each has an individual title because I had planned them as there own fics chapter orginally. Thanks to Tenshi for helping me develop "Worth It."

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Snapshots**

….

A Different Kind of Bravery

She stepped over the remains of the gargoyle that had once guarded the staff room, a lump forming in her throat. It was just a statue, sure one that had a smart-aleck comment every now and then, but still, just a statue. Refusing the tears that threatened to well up in her aging eyes, she continued down the hall, unsure of where she was heading.

It was silent, too silent, in the castle. Everyone was in the Great Hall celebrating and mourning. Even the portraits in the hall were empty, the figures portrayed in them were all crushed into the frames in and near the Great Hall as well, joining in on the festivities. As were the ghosts, and all of the students, and the ghosts, and even Peeves. Everyone and everything that gave the castle life was stuffed into the room, leaving everywhere else lone and desolate and much, _much_ too quiet.

The deeper she proceeded into the castle, although the damage was lesser, the Death Eaters hadn't penetrated this far, the silence and the darkness of the not yet dawn weighed down on the aging women. She continued walking because to stay still would be to remember. To stay still would be to accept it, all the misery, pain, death, despair…

The castle was destroyed, its glory stolen. A simple 'repairo' would not do. No, these were damages done by curses and hate, not so easily healed. They would have to rebuild. Start from new. Except…that wasn't so easy when you couldn't first accept the past.

Minerva McGonagall was a brave woman. She had lived and fought in two wars against You-Know-Who. She was Gryffindor and even more, the head of the house, and dealing with years worth of courageous, but often brash, Gryffindor students was a much more demanding task then it sounded. But this, this would take a different kind of bravery.

Somehow, unconsciously, McGonagall's feet lead her straight to the head's office. She stared up at the large gargoyle that guarded the entrance, unable to think up the last password, her head was too full of everything else.

"Can I go up?" she asked in place of the password, hoping, as she meant no ill will and had been the deputy Headmistress for years more than she could count that the statue would allow her entrance. It did, jumping aside to reveal a revolving staircase.

She opened the door to the office. All the portraits were empty, as she expected, except for one, Dumbledore's. Her friend, mentor, and confidant….for so many years she couldn't even count them anymore. Here he was, sitting in the portrait behind the desk just as though he had been waiting for her. On second thought, maybe he was.

He caught her eye as she come further into the room. He spoke four words and suddenly all of her worries lifted, if just for the moment. It's hard to move on, but she would stick around and lead this school to a new tomorrow because…well, he said she could.

"You can do it."

….

Unexpected

When Hermione went to search out her parents in Australia, the reception she got from them when she removed the charm that had made them forget her was not what she expected. She expected to get scolded for her deceptive action, because she was a good kid and didn't do things like wipe her parents temporarily blank of her and convince them that their biggest goal in life was to move to Australia.

Instead she was hugged by both mother and father. "We missed you," her mum whispered in her ear. Hermione found it strange, because if she had charmed her parents correctly, they wouldn't have missed her during the almost year apart. Then she realized how far apart she and her parents have grown apart ever since she started Hogwarts. Hermione had always lived at home when she attended elementary school. But slowly and slowly the parents and daughter had drifted apart as Hermione had spent more and more of summer, Christmas, and Easter break at school or at the Burrow or at Grimmauld Place as she adopted a new magical family.

Only then, when the talked over tea and sugar-free cookies, her parents were dentists after all, did Hermione realize how much she had missed her parents as well…and it was about time she introduced them to Ron because if things kept going as they were going, it might not be long until both of her family combined.

….

Worth It

"Perce?…Earth to Percy…"

"Um," Percy mumbled in response.

"Ah, you've been staring at the pile of receipts for ten minutes without organizing them by time and date and I know how you hate it when things aren't unnecessarily organized," commented George, who was lounging around rather than doing work.

"Oh, right," replied Percy absently, not even catching the joke on George's voice, as he began absently sifting through the papers set before him.

"Percy?" said George again, approaching his elder brother. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," stated Percy, not even looking up from his work to see his brother now standing over him at his desk.

"Well, actually I can think bout seven things wrong with you off hand."

Percy mumbled incoherently in response, missing the humor again, those lost in his own thoughts. George was strongly tempted to push Percy out of his chair.

Instead he found a large leather-bound book that he was surprised that he owned and dropped in straight on to Percy's desk with a 'bang.'

This shocked the older of the two red-headed boys into finally noticing his younger brother.

"What was that for?" Percy demanded curtly, perturbed that his papers were now sprayed across the room.

"Now that I got your attention," said George, completing ignoring Percy's previous exclamation. "What's wrong with you? And don't say nothing," George quickly added when Percy opened his mouth to protest.

"I was just thinking about—" Percy's words suddenly cut off and he glanced nervously at George.

"About what?" asked George, almost curtly as he recognized how Percy's eyes flickered to his face then just as urgently away as he cut off his sentence. It was an action George had grown to recognize over the last few months when someone was about to speak of his late twin. "About Fred?"

Percy nodded mutely.

George sighed inwardly. He sat down on the chair opposite Percy's desk. "What about Fred?" he asked

"Are you sure you want to….?" questioned Percy, concerned about bringing up the painful subject up to his younger brother.

"I'm pretty sure I ­_don't _want to talk about my dead brother….but you need to. You helped me not long ago, you deserve that same courtesy…Now on with it," said George changing his tone from serious to playful, but it was a fake playful that even Percy see through, or, hear through, in this case, "We don't have all day."

Resigned to the inevitable, Percy began, "I was thinking about the day he died…" Percy told his tale, him making a lame joke during the fight. Fred finding it amusing more out of the fact that Percy could joke at all. "…If I hadn't distracted him, maybe he wouldn't have…." He trailed off.

"Have died," George finished for him.

"Yes," replied Percy somberly.

"Well, that's ridiculous!" said George, surprising Percy with George's flippant disregard to Percy's concern. "If You-Know-Who hadn't decided to become a raging maniac none of those people would have died that night. It's not your fault for something you didn't do. You were fighting on our side…Plus, to hear you tell a joke was probably worth it to Fred…."

….

They Live In One Another Still

"Dora! What are you doing here?" questioned Remus over he ferocity of the ensuing battle.

"The same thing as you, you idiot!" Tonks yelled back, obviously displeased with her husband's choice to try and run off to this fight without her.

"What about Teddy?" he asked, after sending a curse towards his opponent, who crumbled as it hit him.

"He's with my mum," replied Tonks, also taking down her victim, giving the two a momentary pause from the fighting about them.

"You shouldn't have come," he reprimanded softly, before turning his attention to help a Ravenclaw seventh year he didn't recognize who looked a bit overwhelmed with trying to hold off two Death Eaters at once.

"I have as much reason to be here as you," she retorted, joining him.

It was a valid point. She was as much as an enemy to the Dark Lord and his followers as he was. He didn't underestimate her dueling abilities in the slightest, she was a fully trained Auror after all. She was a morally good person, perhaps with a little reckless and playful side to her…He should have known she would never had let him fight this all on his own.

"But Teddy should have at least one parent left if…" Remus trailed off, hating to accept the fact that it was unlikely that both of them would survive this.

"It doesn't matter if we don't win this battle, anyway," she aimed a strong stunner at a Death Eater across the room. "If I sat at home and played safe it would be only time until they tracked us down anyway..."

"You don't know—" Remus tried to protest.

"I do know that!" she cut him off, yelling over the chaos, and she jumped out of the way of some falling rumble caused by a wayward spell. "I am a known member of the Order of the Phoenix. My mum's a blood traitor. And I'm married to a werewolf. None of us are safe and I am not going to sit at home when I very well could being doing something about it!"

"I—I just want you to be safe," he returned, before turning his back on her to take on a new opponent.

"There is no such thing in this world right now. Plus, for better or worse, right?"

"Til death do us part," Remus replied.

Not even an hour later, both Remus and Nymphadora Lupin lay dead in the Great Hall. Whoever had moved the bodies there had, whether by choice or accident, laid them side up side, close, hands almost touching, looking as they were asleep. Not even death could part them.


	13. Malfoys: White

**Aki- **I know what you all are thinking, it's about bloddy time. How many months have I been away...eh...like, seven. Well, I'm finally back into the Harry Potter mood. I also put up a HP oneshot up, if you need more. I do have a visible end to this story. Please read with my apologies for the delay.

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The Malfoys: White

The house was tainted. Too many horrible things had happened there. Too many. The house was no longer Malfoy Manor. The house was no longer home. It was just the house.

The broken piece of wood pushed splinters into Lucius's hands as he picked it up. That table had been in the family for centuries. The sides were carves ancient words about his oldest ancestors. They only ever ate on it on very special occasions. It was ruined… At one time that would have mattered. He could have used his wand and waved the wreckage of his furniture away, but he preferred cleaning out his house the muggle way. It was…catharsis. There were some things magic just couldn't clean up…

Like a wife who couldn't look her husband in the eye anymore and a son who spoke a lot less than he used to.

On the front lawn that once harbored large parties of the pureblood associates and the highest ministry officials now had brown blotches of dead grass where it had once been flawlessly green. Trash and debris that Lucius had been persistently trudging out of the wrecked house where stacked in uneven piles. The adult Malfoy dumped the last of the table from his blistered hands into a growing pile just left of the front door, the one that contained the chandelier and shattered family artifacts that dated back several generations.

He stepped back inside his house. The room that had once been the center of the Dark Lord's schemes (for even now, after his final defeat at the hands of the-boy-who-lived, Lucius could still not speak his name), Death Eater activity, torture, and death…the room, that even before that, was the center of Christmas mornings, cocktails before dinner parties, and long nights in front of an open, blazing hearth, was finally emptied.

His muscles ached from unaccustomed physical activity and excursion. The old wooden floor was bare of it's blood stained Persian rug, the walls stripped of the Victorian, floral, curse-marked wallpaper, ancestors missing from there gilded frames as they sought refuge in the empty attic's framed portraits although those had long been removed to there as those family members where posthumously named blood-traitors, whether or not they deserved exile after death, Lucius wasn't sure.

What surprised him was underneath the scorched tapestries, the empty frames, and the ruined wallpaper was that the walls were white. He had expected gray or an aged brown,...but they were white.

He could do anything to this room now that all it had was a bare wooden floor, blank walls, and a high ceiling. He could make it into anything. A brand new sitting room, a dining room, a lounge, a library. He could paint any color or decorate as he or his family wished. It was a fresh blank canvas.

White equals purity.

…

Narcissa stood nervously on the front doorstep. She was fully prepared to have the door slammed in her face…but she was still nervous. When was the last time she had spoken with her estranged sister? It had been so many years since she turned her back on her family, marrying a mudblood and bearing his child…She was a blood traitor…Wait! Don't think like that, Narcissa, there is no room for that in this world anymore…plus, why had all those negative words been in Bella's voice?

She knocked her thin knuckles onto the white front door.

"Coming," called a woman's voice from inside. It sounded like Andromeda. Narcissa still remembered her voice. Footsteps stopped on the inside of the door and she suspected her elder sister was looking out of the peep hole.

The door opened. "Cissy?"

Narcissa couldn't decide if her sister's voice was more cold or curious. She found hope in the fact that her childhood was employed.

"Andy," Narcissa said, she too using her sister's nickname.

Andromeda cross her arms and leaned lightly against the door post and said with hard edge to her tone, "What do you want?"

"I—," started Narcissa but she couldn't continue. All she could do was stare at her sister. She looked a little bit like Bellatrix, except her features were softer, lighter, and a lot less touched by insanity then her oldest sister. Andromeda was beautiful, like most of the Blacks had been, even though she was heavier, although barely discernable, then she had been as the young adult Narcissa last saw her as, and there were wrinkles on her brow and in the corner of her eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"Andy, I'm sorry. I've done so many horrible things. I turned my back on you, my big sister…and I don't know how to make up for it. And it's just not fair because after all the things I have done I still have my family and you have been right all along and you lost yours and I wish I could do something…but I can't…and…and…" She had lost her voice to tears and hiccupping sobs.

Andromeda stared at her blonde-haired, pale-skinned sister, standing on her doorstep in a white sundress that must have been her attempt at dressing like a muggle for the sake of disguise.

"Come in."

"Excuse me?"

"Come in, Cissy. We should talk. We have a lot of things to work out."

She felt like crying all over again.

White equals renewal.

…

Draco had adapted to the stares and whispers he received as he sat in the Ministry waiting room as a free man. His entire family was a well-known Death-Eater family and yet they were not in prison. And this time there were no lies of the imperious curse or bribes that secured this freedom. No, this time, the one and only Harry Potter had vouched for them. And as thankful as he was that he and his parents hadn't been carted off to Azkaban, he needed to know why he had been granted such a grace.

And how would he discover such a reason, by going to the source, the Wizarding World's Golden Boy himself, who had to come to the Ministry sometime or the other for Auror training and probably to receive praise and awards and keys to cities, because isn't that what overblown heroes got. Draco, of course, could have attempted to contact Potter at his home, which may have been faster, but he, however, did not know where Potter lived and knew for a fact that any inquiry would probably be seen as a threat. So instead he was waiting in the lobby waiting area at the ministry, terribly bored and slowly getting irritated at the whispers and glances getting thrown his way despite the boast that he had become accustomed to it.

It was when his irritation was reaching a dangerous level that he spotted glasses and unruly black hair walk by in the crowd. Draco was out of his seat and halfway across the lobby in a heartbeat and a half.

"Oi, Potter!" he called when he was close enough to not cause a gigantic scene in the noisy area.

The man stopped dead in his tracks, turned and said in an 'I really don't want to deal with this right now' voice, "Mafoy?" Harry had just completed an intensive day of Auror training and he wanted to escape the Ministry before he was bombarded with people asking for his autograph, political advise, or proposals of marriage. "Do you want something?"

"I have a question for you," said Malfoy in the nastiest way possible without sounding menacing.

Owing to the fact that Malfoy had yet to insult him, Harry gave him a little nod and a look that said without words, 'Go on.'

"Why'd you do it?"

"Can you be any _more_ vague?"

"You know what the hell I'm talking about. Why did you save my family?"

"You were at court that day, you heard me list all the—"

"No, those are the things that got my family off the hook for our crimes…that's not the reason you covered for us. I had never been anything but horrible to you and your friends, why would you try to help me out? Your perfect revenge would have been to say nothing."

"But, you see, Malfoy, I wasn't looking for revenge…I was able to forgive you and your family because, in the end, you all choose your family over everything else…"

Draco stared at the boy who had once been his arch-nemesis in school.

"Too many families have been torn apart by this war," Harry continued, "Including mine. Any of them that could be saved should be."

Draco had stopped staring at Potter and was now staring at his feet, shuffling them nervously. "Potter…thanks."

Harry raised an eyebrow, this was getting dangerously close to becoming a moment. "I've given you a second chance Malfoy, don't blow it."

Draco decided as he was walking in the bright, white afternoon sun that he still hated Potter and would until the day he died.

White equals redemption.

…

Draco was surprised to walk into the once well-furnished parlor to find it empty.

"I know," said his mother, who was sitting in the middle of the hardwood floor next to her husband, recognizing her son's expression of shock, "It looks a lot bigger without any furniture."

"I was going to say it looks very…bright. Why are the walls white?"

"Because that's the color they are," answered Lucius in a very not useful way.

"Come on, Draco, join us," encouraged Narcissa with a wave of her hand.

"To sit…on the floor?"

"Yes."

He shrugged and joined them.

The three sat, blonde-haired, pale-skinned, practically fading into the white background especially with the sunlight leaking through the windows. Narcissa was almost invisible in her dress.

"So, Narcissa, Draco, did you two do anything interesting today."

"No," the two replied simultaneously. "You, Lucius?" asked Narcissa

"No."

**Aki-** Okay, I have a few questions about the next generation characters. I know JKR said some stuff in interviews after DH about with more info. There are some things that I see in a lot of next generation fanfics if I'm not sure if it is a canon thing JKR stated or if it jiust something a lot of people use or maybe it is just one author with a lot of different stories...Okay, Draco's wife, I've heard a person named Astoria mentioned a few times. ALso, does Victiore, which is the daughter of Bill and Fluer, have any siblings?I know some of the stuff, particularly the moire obvious, like Neville being the Herbology professor, but if there is anymore info that you know, can you share it with me. I read the interview a long time ago, but I want to know the rest for a potential next generation fic in the future.


	14. Dudley: Useless

**Aki**- Hey, been a while, huh? Yup, finally inspired to write this. I was so excited to update this I could not wait for my sometimes beta, Tenshi, to proof this, so forgive any mistakes or at least point out them for fixing. So, yeah, I am planning either one or two more chapters in this story. Tell me what you think.

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**Dudley: Useless**

He didn't know where his cousin lived now. He wasn't informed and his parents rather cared not to know. For the first time in seventeen years the reminder of their freak relatives was gone from their house for good— the house on Privet Drive they were able to return to after months in hiding and under wizard protection. Complete hell for his parents, who despised magic with all their being and loved being praised by their neighbors.

He didn't know Harry's address, but he wrote it anyway. Their was so much more he had wanted Harry to know that he never got to tell the other boy. An apology, an explanation, a…something. Something more than just, "I don't think he's useless…he saved my life."

He wrote three notebook pages of words he wanted to say, reread them once, and threw them away. So he wrote a few words on a generic greeting card around the time of his cousin's commonly neglected birthday, put on a stamp and his name and waited.

Two days later a black owl showed up on the windowsill of his bedroom. If his parents had seen it, they would have gone ballistic. It wasn't the white owl Dudley briefly remembered Harry kept in a cage in his room for about six years, but he figured it was the best he was going to get, he decided, as he tied the envelope uneasily to a string on the owl's extended leg.

He felt like an idiot when the bird flew off into the morning sun.

***

He didn't know what possessed him to do it. Really, in the end, Harry most likely did not want to hear from his cousin who used to bully him. Yes, Dudley knew he was a bully, and he was finally old enough and mature enough to admit that. And he was sorry, because none of the people he bullied, especially Harry, Hdeserved it. His cousin owed him nothing, even as Dudley felt the weight of guilt from past dissections bothering him.

Dudley was barely 18, and he hadn't yet quite to feel like an adult and his parents weren't anywhere near treating him like one. He was still quite the pampered child to them. So maybe he was still too young and too stupid and too sheltered to _really_ understand what he really did to his cousin. But the fact remains that Harry saved his life. And Dudley's pretty sure the knowledge of that was what shamed into to recognizing that Harry was a good person and that he, Dudley, hadn't treated him like it.

So, in result, the birthday card was just an abysmal attempt at an apology, even though an apology failed to be written in it. It was brought on from the end of a guilt trip, and, perhaps, a little selfish. It was all to make himself feel better. Hasn't worked yet, but he really is sorry.

Dudley thinks that may that's what he should have wrote.

***

Several months pass without anything even vaguely magical or out of the ordinary occurring. Both Vernon and Petunia Dursely seemed to be flourishing in it, having since satisfied their neighbors' curiosity of there whereabouts in their missing months from home. They told about how they were charitable enough to attend to their aging great aunt in France during her final months.

Shortly before midnight, on day late in December but not yet passing the holidays, a scratching came on Dudley's bedroom window. An owl, he discovered, possibly the same one from back in July, but he couldn't be sure. It had a letter for him.

A Christmas card, Dudley discovered, as he opened the envelope. Not much was said, just as the birthday card Dudley sent was lacking, but it did include a street address Dudley could use instead of relying on Harry's owl, unless, of course, Harry had added in jest, he was planning to get a bird of his own for a pet.

Dudley took it as forgiveness, redemption, even, maybe. Harry hadn't used either of those words, but Dudley hadn't exactly used 'apology' and 'sorry' in his card either. He thinks it might be better that way.

***

It continued for years like this. Birthdays and Christmases…and sometimes other greeting card holidays too. They hadn't seen each other. Neither was pressing for a meeting, and Dudley felt sure neither of them wanted one, at least most of the time.

They only ever wrote about simple things in their cards: jobs, women, houses, and kids. Dudley never writes the things he thinks he should have said, and even though it sometimes weighs on his mind, he realizes that Harry isn't looking for them.

So as Dudley reads about Harry's promotion to a job he couldn't even dream existing and then writes in return about the girl he proposed to recently, he gets it. Harry and he had never been close in their childhood, never even something resembling friends, and hardly family despite the blood relation. In spite of the distance, this was the closest bond they ever held.

They never use the words 'apology' or 'forgive,' but the action of writing and sending the cards themselves implies it. Any other words would be useless.


	15. Next Generation: Lurking Out Of Sight

Aki- a chapter featuring the next generation characters of James Potter, Albus Potter, and Rose Weasley. In case it is not clear, this is intended to be Albus and Rose's first year. I've always imagined James one year above them, but if you prefer two, it does not make a difference. This was kind of fun because I have imagined up all these next generation characters and thier personalities.

**Next Generation: Lurking Out of Sight**

"James, we're going to get in trouble."

"Come on, Rose, I've wandered the halls many times. No teacher or prefect can best James Potter!"

Albus and Rose paused and glanced sideways at each other. They shared expressions of exasperation and resignation. They might not have thought breaking curfew hours in their first week of Hogwarts schooling was a good idea, but James wanted to take them on 'an adventure.' James usually always got what he wanted, it was a way about him—an annoying, exuberant, convincing way about him. His younger siblings and cousins often failed to resist him, despite the fact that his parents could. No matter how many mischievous activities James got them into, none of his younger family members could deny the excursions were fun.

"How much longer?" Albus whispered as James led them around another corner into yet another corridor. Albus was so turned around by now he didn't even know which floor they were on. He had half a mind that James had led them on a maze and was planning on abandoning them for a laugh. Well, he might have done that to his younger brother. "Orienteering practice" he may have called it, but Albus didn't think he'd do that to Rose. Because she was a girl and because Aunt Hermione was scary when she got angry.

James, walked ahead of the other two, just waved his question off without even looking behind him. He paused at an corridor intersection, peering down each hallway in turn.

"Ah, it's this way," he finally said, pointing down the corridor to the left. He sighed as he began to walk down the hallway which he pointed out and Rose and Albus followed. "I thought I was lost there for a second."

"Lost!" Rose screeched.

James frantically hushed her. "I'm not lost _now_."

"But still," she retorted, obviously a little flustered and a touch frustrated. Albus smirked, thankfully that the dimness of school at night for hiding it. Rose was high-strung sometimes. He guessed maybe that's why James insisted on dragging her along and was not just satisfied with convincing his little brother into venturing out in the castle with him.

About halfway down the corridor he leaned heavily against a large wooden door, opening it slowly and just widely enough for the three children to squeeze in one-by-one. Once they all had entered, he closed the door, to make it sound proof.

The three lit their wands with mutters of 'Lumos.' Rose and Albus had not enough Charms lessons to learn that one yet, but Teddy had taught them when they first got there wands, without their parent's no-how although. Sure there were rules about underage wizardy, but when one hadn't started school yet, they ignored those things.

"Ta-da!" James announced.

"What is this place?" Rose asked, curiosity edging out all her other negative emotions as she stared the three lights of their wands reflecting off plaques and trophies of various size and grandeur that lined all four walls.

"The trophy room."

"You couldn't have shown us this in the daylight?" Albus questioned.

"Come on, Al, it's no fun doing it the 'legal' way."

Rose already began to wander off, shining the light of her wand on the trophies, looking at the names and dates. James went over to the other side of the room, leaving Albus by himself. James seemed to be searching for something, lighted wand held aloft. After a moment he appeared to have found it.

"Oy, Al, Rose, come 'ere." They obliged as James explained, "This is what I _really_ wanted to show you."

James was standing by two plaques, the light from his wand illuminating their faces. They were awards for special services to the school given to 'Harry James Potter' and 'Ronald Bilius Weasley.'

"It makes sense with all the did during the Second War Against Vol—"

"Look at the years, you git," James interrupted his younger brother. "Their ages before the war."

"Yeah, they would have been in their second year," said Rose.

"You did the math in your head just now?" asked James.

"Yeah. What? Did it take you a week?" she jibed.

"What did they do? In their second year?" Albus wondered aloud and all three of them were quiet in response, pondering what it could have been. None of the children had considered their parents having been secretive with their pasts, except perhaps censoring the more gruesome parts of their experience in the war. They knew about Quidditch, traipsing into the Forbidden Forest, the Tri-Wizard Tournament and many of their parents' adventures in their school days, often reminisced over tea or glamorized into bedtime stories. It seemed odd not to know why their father's had received these awards. One would have thought it would have come up.

"Guess we'll have to ask them about it," Rose said finally.

James agreed and suggested showing them were awards to grandpa James and grandma Lily were. Albus followed him, but he was unsettled a little. He was sure his dad would explain as easily as Albus asked. He also knew the answer could possibly bit be dull, as sometimes people got these awards for lame things, but he doubted it with the stunts his dad admitted to pulling at school. However, would his dad or Uncle Ron ever got around to telling this story if they had not found the trophies and had the biting curiosity that gave them the need to question them. How many other stories would never be heard due to the fact that the children found any clue that such an incident ever occurred.

Albus wasn't stupid. He knew his father was famous, that he had done great things, for several years now, but only since he came to school and classmates asked him if really was 'Harry Potter—the Boy Who Lived' son, did the magnitude of it hit him. His dad did many great things and lived in a dark time. Albus doubted he, nor any of his siblings, would ever know everything about all he and Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione did. It was weird to think that there would be so much of his parent's lives he was in the blank to.

But maybe it was like that for all children, destined to never have full knowledge of their parents lives no matter how many stories were told or inquires were answered. Perhaps it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Children were not meant to live their parents' lives, but their own.

"Hey, James, how did you find this stuff anyway?"

"I—uh—had to polish all this stuff for detention last year." He sounded a little sheepish.

Rose laughed. "My dad told me once he do that for detention too. And it took really long because he kept puking slugs on them."

"Why was he puking slugs?" asked James, his voice really, really curious, like he really wanted to know the spell that did that and already had an intended target. Albus just hoped that 'target' wasn't him.

"I—I don't know."

"Guess you'll have to ask them about that one too."


	16. The Golden Trio: Crossing the World

**The Golden Trio: Crossing the World**

He found them sitting by the Great Lake. The sun was on its descent and the air was heavy with a mist. The overcast sky twisted the sunlight into something unfamiliar so that the world was colored an uneasy orange. It made the grass seem uncommonly green where it had not been torn up by running feet and hooves or covered with the rubble which had once been part of the castle.

They were sitting under the beech tree the three had visited many times over the years at Hogwarts. Except seeming a bit bare of leaves, it was completely untouched. It was unmarked. All limbs were attached. No hex marks marred its trunk. It grew on. It would out live them all.

He didn't heed to say anything. They turned their heads when they heard his approach, scuffling footsteps in the dirt. Ron looked weary; the skin under his eyes was dark against his pale skin and freckles. Hermione's eyes were red, although Harry saw no evidence of tears. They both smiled small, tight smiles, but welcoming ones nonetheless.

Harry took it as an invitation and sat down on the other side of Hermione. She was leaning into Ron. He had an arm around her shoulders. Harry leaned back, palms against the grass, body propped up at an angle. Although he stared straight ahead where the peaks of the evergreens in the forest met the sky, he was looking at nothing.

"It's over."

It was a sort of whisper. Neither of his companions responded and Harry wondered if he said it aloud or just in his mind. But after a moment he felt a brush of fingers on his shoulder. They did not linger, but it was a small comforting gesture of Hermione's. He understood it though, because his words were not as happy as they should have been.

Victory had been at dawn. Now it was dusk. Elation had long since died. He was happy at Voldemort's demise, yes, but the happiness was numbed by the sorrow. Because he thought of Fred, Remus, Tonks, and Colin. Of all the dead he was not yet aware of and all the dead he did not know. His thoughts reached before the battle too— to Moody, Dobby, Sirius, Cedric, even Snape. All the people stolen away.

The waters moved on the surface of the lake, rippling, glancing light off the miniature waves. Something choked Harry's throat as he fought back inexplicable tears at the sight of the giant squid's tentacles breaking the surface of the water.

If Hermione or Ron noticed, they did nothing.

And the sun fell as they sat there in silence— if the breeze rustling the trees, the squid splashing in the lake, the sound of his companion's breathing, and the loud beating of his heart in his chest could be considered silence.

The sun was almost dead, now. Its light was barely peaking above the low points of the trees and mountains. Evening was coming upon them.

"Should we go in?" asked Hermione quietly into the twilight.

"Not yet," said Ron. Harry was thankful Ron had said it so he would not have to.

Here, Harry, with Ron and Hermione, was content. Here they could just be the three of them under no pretense— no demands to be leaders or mourners or celebrators. Here, staring out at the lake as the sky was painted darker by the minute. As soon as they turned around and walked back to the castle, it would be different. Because there was a world to rebuild and funerals to be had and a million admirers, well-wishers, and question askers to face. And right now he'd rather be Harry—_just Harry_— with his two best friends out at the lake worrying about exams and Quidditch and girlfriends and the indignity of the most recent amount of points stricken from their house unfairly by Snape. All those things that had once been important.

Maybe they would be important again someday. Girls- certainly and possibly Quidditch and Harry was sure that there would be many more students that would sit where they were sitting and anguish about such things. The thought relieved him.

The stars were visible now. The silence— the so called silence— was increasingly comfortable between the three and none of them made a move to leave. There would be a lot to face tomorrow and the day after, but it could only be better than yesterday. Hope, Harry may have called it. Yet that was not what he was most thankful for. No, rather, he was most thankful for this moment, the one he was living in right now with every passing second. T his moment and the company with whom he was sharing it.

* * *

**Aki-** This is the last chapter, as I was always planning on ending with our favorite trio. This chapter came out a bit…less happy…then I was intending, but I like it. I was experimenting sith creating sensory and visual details that created the mood, thus the description at the beginning, rather than just stating the mood. Hope it worked.

Thanks to Tenshi who helped with many of these chapters, whether with proofing or helping me come up with ideas/concepts.

As this _is_ the last chapter, you should all review now.


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